


The Far Side of Avalon

by Revenant



Series: Once and Again [1]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies), Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Canonical Character Death, M/M, Magic, Past Lives, Pre-Slash, Reincarnation, Secret Intelligence Service | MI6, once and future slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-27
Updated: 2014-01-27
Packaged: 2018-01-10 04:28:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1155078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Revenant/pseuds/Revenant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur once asked him to never change, but after seventeen lifetimes Merlin finds that change is impossible to avoid. That isn't necessarily a bad thing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Far Side of Avalon

**Author's Note:**

> **A/N:** This is a one-shot attached to a much longer and more complex story I'm working on entitled 'Once and Again'. If you are interested in seeing more, please leave a comment to keep me on task! This is marked as slash because the larger arch involves pairings.
> 
>   
> **Read @:** [LiveJournal](http://revenant-scribe.livejournal.com/39260.html)  
> 

_"I don't want you to change,"_ Arthur said. _"I want you to always be you."_  
__________________________________________________________

The little bakery is family run and serves the most delicious chocolate croissants he has ever tasted, and they brew tea to perfection. Additionally, no one has any trouble with him occupying the corner booth at the back, hunched over his laptop making good use of the free wi-fi, typing with one hand as the other gropes for the warm crumbly treat or alternately for a sip from his cup. 

He's not used to being interrupted. Outside of the staff he doesn't know anyone in the area, which is why he's taken by surprise when a tall woman in a tailored, flatteringly fitted suit and black pumps settles into the seat opposite him, perching her elbows on the table and her chin on her interlaced fingers as she gazes at him intently. 

She opens conversation by saying, "It's you, isn't it?"

Merlin looks up from his laptop, noting her dark brown hair held away from her face in a smooth bun, and the piercing grey-blue eyes that are fixed on him. She's beautiful; effortlessly elegant and entirely striking. She is not the sort of woman that one would ever forget seeing, and he's absolutely positive he never has. And yet… 

He still knows exactly who she is even if the defiance that so coloured her before has drained away. There's no longer an arrogantly petulant curve to her lips, no imperious coldness in her stare. He thinks she looks ethereal and melancholy even as she offers him a smile from across the table. 

"Your style hasn't changed much," she notes with a wry twist to her lips. Her voice is low with a hint of dry husk crackling around the edges; it's strangely alluring. Brow arching smoothly upward she pointedly observes his attire: a dark blue long-sleeved shirt with a red knit scarf still wrapped about his neck because he suspects he's coming down with a cold. His brown parka is hanging over the back of a chair to his left. 

These clothes were simply ready-to-hand; the first shirt he pulled from his drawer, the warmest scarf in his closet. Suddenly he feels awkward about them. "I don't recall wearing denim in Camelot," he says as he sips from his teacup, trying not to look unsettled. 

"Mm." She offers him an enigmatic smile as she drinks him in; the intensity of her gaze makes him feel suddenly shy. "Or glasses. Do you really need those, or are you merely being vain?" Her gaze narrows, sharpens. "Are you a hipster? That seems strangely fitting, actually."

Merlin sets his tea aside. "I've never been vain Morgana."

"Surely your magic would have taken care of any need for them." She plucks his glasses off his face and holds them up, peering through a lens to test the prescription. "It's Vesper, by the way. I prefer it to the other. Fresh start."

"Fresh start?" He takes his glasses back when she offers them, resettling them on his nose.

"Well, more than one. I think I'm up to about twenty, now. I assume it's been the same for you?" When he nods she flashes that curious little smile again, part nostalgic and part grimace. "I suppose it's no use to apologize for any of it. Too little, too late and all that."

"Some lives have been foretold." It comes out sounding more darkly bleak than he'd intended. He doesn't feel bitter about it any longer. Mostly he just feels numb. 

When he glances up she catches his eye, her gaze smooth and steady. It's filled with understanding, sorrow licking at the corners and something warm and fond that makes him ache desperately at the memories. He clears his throat and her eyes flick away. Her smile turns brittle, wistful. She says, "I'm half afraid that one day it will all happen again, and it will be exactly the same. As soon as I start recovering the memories I do what I can to ensure that things are different, that at least _I_ won't play the part in it that I did then."

"That was ages ago, Morgana. None of it matters anymore." 

He returns to his laptop trying to quell the surge of emotion rising up inside him. He wants to forget it. All of it. Every goddamned painful second. He can't. Just like he can't pretend there isn't a part of him that's flooded with relief and joy just at the sight of her: beautiful and bright-eyed and undamaged. "You remember it? _All_ of it?"

"Not all, no. And not always." She offers a little rolling half-shrug. Always so damnably elegant. The gesture strikes him as unusually modest for her. "It's the visions, I suspect," she continues. "I'll be gloriously ignorant for most of my childhood and then one day…"

He tries to hide how envious he is but it slips through into his tone. "I'm never ignorant of it. I remember everything, always, from the moment I return."

They fall silent as she sips at her tea. He thinks about the dreams she used to have, how she was always one step ahead of everyone, trying to warn them until she gave-up hope of being heard. This time, he thinks, he's the one who knows. If he could, he would gladly trade for her ignorance. Merlin suspects she felt much the same back then. The Sight has always struck him as a horrible gift.

"I recognized you the other day," she says blithely, breaking the silence. "You were entering this shop and I was across the street. It's hard to believe you ever managed to keep your magic secret; I felt it all the way from where I was standing. Further, I think, but I didn't know what it was until I saw you." Her eyes meet his and then slip away again. Merlin wonders if she's nervous. "I thought I would take a chance, see if you might return here. I thought it might be good for us," she says. "To talk."

He looks for it but can't see anything of the spiteful sorceress she once was; there's only the impetuous, stubborn woman that he'd proudly called 'friend' so many lifetimes ago. "Have you seen any of the others?" he finds himself asking, and then feels horrible when it only seems to heighten her discomfort.

"Gwen. Once." Her smile is soft and nostalgic. "She was one of the maids of honour to Anne Boleyn. I saw her at court." 

Merlin watches as she stares into the depths of her teacup for a moment before taking a sip. When she puts the cup down there's a faint shadow of red lipstick marring the white porcelain. The shade reminds him rather morbidly of blood and he feels a flash of guilt, thinking of her and blood when things are different now. When she is so plainly someone else. 

Morgana shakes her head, rueful. "I didn't speak to her. I couldn't think of anything to say at the time, but later I regretted the missed opportunity." She laughs. "Not that she would have known me. Not really."

He understands how she feels. He'd seen Mordred once, on a busy street near Piccadilly two lifetimes ago. Mordred's hands had been tucked into the pockets of his trousers, his shoulders hunched forward under the weight of a green backpack as he'd jogged across the street. Merlin had been coming out of a corner shop and been so startled he'd stalled in the doorway. Mordred hadn't looked anything like he had back then but Merlin still recognized him, felt a conflicting surge of rage-hurt-sorrow-anger-bitterness and he'd found himself instinctively ducking back inside just as the other man had glanced over his shoulder as if he too had recognized Merlin's presence.

"I met Gwen as well," Merlin offers, choosing to think on a happier memory. "She was the fifth Grand Master of the Knights Templar."

"Really?" Morgana looks genuinely pleased by the information. "That's brilliant. How did you meet her?"

He shrugs, sheepish. "I was one of the founders."

"You have been busy," she teases. "Tell me more."

There are thirty-seven lifetimes between them and they're both eager to share every one. The more she talks the more Morgana seems to brighten and relax. The more he talks the more Merlin becomes aware of the giddy-joy he feels to be able to speak to someone this way. To remember.

He tells her about how he was accused of sorcery in 1488 and spent several long months in prison being interrogated, tortured and starved. He'd met Gwaine there, imprisoned for the same crime. 

"Innocent, of course," Morgana says. 

Merlin nods. "Yes. Unlike me."

"I managed to avoid the indignity of being accused of witchcraft. Though I've been beheaded several times, and burnt once as a heretic." 

Merlin and Gwaine had been lashed side-by-side to the stake. As the knots were tied he'd considered using his magic to break free but he couldn't bring himself to leave Gwaine alone to his fate. Even if, in truth, Gwaine wasn't really Gwaine. There was another part of Merlin that had wondered -- as he found himself wondering every time -- if this death might be permanent. If maybe this time, he'd gotten it right, got to rest. 

When the fire had been set, licking up to their feet, Gwaine had looked to him, had seemed to recall something of his years as a knight of Camelot. Merlin has never been certain but there was something in the other man's eyes, in the anguish in his tone as he'd said, _"I'm so sorry,"_. It seemed like an apology that belonged in another life, not where they stood burning together, strangers where it counted. 

"They never seem to know," he tells Morgana. "I thought maybe I was an exception, cursed to always remember. It's nice to find that it's not quite the case."

"Even if it's me?" she asks ruefully, and then brushes over any answer he might give by asking, "What about him? Have you seen Arthur?"

"No." Merlin licks his lips and focuses his attention on shredding his croissant into pieces. "The dragon told me that he would come again when he was needed. I just assumed it was a one-time thing."

She peers at him again with that familiar, knowing gaze. Merlin wonders if she still has the Sight, if she still wakes herself with screaming, head swimming with the mistakes of the future. "You're different without him," she says. "Do you even remember what it was like, back then? Answer me honestly."

Back then Merlin had an insufferable idiot as a friend, someone he would have happily died for. They had a bond that was unyielding, unbroken. Even when their faith in one another had been shaken he and Arthur had never truly faltered. 

When he says nothing she pushes on, "You had such conviction. You seemed to intuitively _know_ what was right, down in your very heart. You had such _unshakable faith_." Again her smile is sad, she dips her head forward. "I think I envied that most about you, Merlin. Every life I live I find myself hoping to know what that might be like: dying for something I truly believe in."

"Don't romanticize it, Morgana," he says, then corrects himself, " _Vesper_. It's not glorious. Death is always just death."

"You both seemed like one half of a whole, to me," she says, ignoring him. "You should look for him, I think. It would be good for you."

Merlin closes his laptop with a quiet but definitive 'click'. "Didn't you hear me? Arthur isn't out there. He's not coming back until some distant point in the future when a place that doesn't even exist anymore suddenly needs him again. Then maybe this hellish cycle can finally stop. But until then it's just this: me, here on my own. Sometimes brushing paths with someone I remember from a different time."

"But what if he _is_ out there?" she pushes, leaning forward even as she lowers her voice. "What if he's always _been_ out there just like I've been, and Guinevere and Gwaine and the others? What if you just haven't bothered to look?" 

Merlin clenches his jaw and turns away from her until she reaches out, resting her hands atop his own. "I'm so sorry, Merlin. I can't ever say it enough, and I know it doesn't mean anything now. But I can see that you're a different person than you ever were, and some of that change isn't for the better." Her hands are warm atop his own. She asks, "What’s the harm?"

With a shuddering breath, Merlin admits, "I don't know if I can take even one more moment of disappointed hope."

She kisses him chastely on the lips before she stands. "Think of it this way," she tells him, her hand resting on her shoulder. "If you keep going the way you are, there will be barely anything left of the person you once were. How will Arthur recognize you, then?"

…………………………………………………………

The first time Merlin died it was nothing.

He was tired and worn, had long-since forgotten Gaius and Guinevere and what words like 'friendship' and 'family' meant. He was the wild man of the forest and he knew only the squirrels and birds and creatures that lived there with him; knew the aching loss he felt when he looked out across the water to Avalon, though he'd forgotten why that view filled him with such sorrow. Forgot even, that the name of the shores he found himself staring at with such longing were called Avalon.

One day he simply curled up on the sand and closed his eyes and had a moment of peace and calm, of perfect bliss, of restoration. So much love and so much joy had filled him up it had been almost unbearable, and just when he thought he might burst from it all he opened his eyes and gasped and stared blankly at the flushed woman who was holding him in her arms. 

"Shh," she told him. "Shh, everything is alright little one. My sweet little boy."

Confusion filled him as he gazed at her. The woman holding him was not Hunith, was not his mother and yet …

_And yet…_

Merlin remembered Arthur and Camelot; he remembered Morgana and the dragon and Mordred. Every moment of it. "It's alright now," the woman was crooning to him even though it looked as if he should be the one whispering those words to her, exhausted and worn as she was, sitting propped upright by straw pillows. "Everything is alright."

He gripped her as hard as he could and realized his hands were small, so very small. That he was clutching only her index finger, that he was shrivelled and tiny and brand new. He took a breath and screamed and screamed until the midwife had picked him up, soothing the woman who was and yet was not Merlin's mother, "He is simply hungry, do not fear."

Outside, spurred by his rage and his magic, a storm broke open on the town that was now his birthplace even if it was not Ealdor. Lightning pounded the earth as Merlin roared.

…………………………………………………………

Two agents usher him into Vauxhall Cross, (only two, which is mildly insulting given what he is capable of doing to an entire city with the mere blink of an eye). But of course they don't know about his magic. They have a completely different interest in him. He follows obediently and sits on a black leather chair when one is offered. He even manages to pay attention when the head of the Secret Intelligence Service says, "You may call me 'M'."

'M' has an entire file on him. It's dark blue and leather-bound. It looks very nice and terrifyingly official, and it contains enough of his online movements to be damning. Merlin sometimes jokes that he's a wizard when it comes to technology. He's also got quite a knack for computers. 'M' seems suitably impressed by his record.

"Once might very well be dismissed as coincidence or luck, Mister Boothroyd," she says. "But as you can see it's quite a bit more than once." 

Her primary concern, understandably, is the number of times he has slipped through the security of her organization and taken a casual perusal of their records. "What exactly were you looking for?" 

"I don't know," he tells her. It's the truth even if it's not the whole of it. He's looking for someone but he doesn't know who. Merlin hopes that he'll recognize Arthur when he sees him but it's been a very long time since Merlin has had any reason to 'hope' at all. He suspects he's out of practice. Still, he's been burrowing his way into as many systems as he can: searching. 

'M' has glinting sharp eyes and Merlin reads her history in the lines on her face, in the tightness around her mouth as she looks at him. He doesn't need to use magic to know that she views him as a threat with the potential to be a valuable asset. "Mister Boothroyd…" 

"Please," he interrupts, already knowing what she will ask him. "Call me 'Q'."

Some of the severity ekes from her expression and there's a flash of what might be amusement in her eyes. "Q," she says. "How would you feel about coming to work for the agency?"

This is how Merlin finds himself ensconced in a shadowy basement, working for MI6.

…………………………………………………………

Merlin is reborn again and again.

He looks different and his name changes but he always remembers everything that went before. He always has magic and he's always waiting. Camelot's borders expand and shrink and expand, names of places change, rulers come and go, but Arthur never does. Merlin dies and feels a brief lulling moment of bliss that fills and fills him up until he's about to burst and then he opens his eyes and it begins again: different, but always the same.

…………………………………………………………

Later, but not today, Vesper Lynd will send him a cryptic message shortly before dying for something that she truly believes in. Merlin's magic will come to the attention of his employer and he will be asked to pledge every ounce of himself to the defense and preservation of his country. As if he hasn't done all of that already. As if he hasn't been doing that from the start.

Vauxhall Cross will explode and he'll be promoted and somehow, Merlin will find himself sitting in the National Gallery in front of a painting that always leaves him feeling melancholy. "What do you see?" he will ask. "I'm your new Quartermaster," he will say.

Beside him, 007 will respond: "You must be joking."

Later, but not today, Merlin will be standing in his subterranean office that has become his second home, staring at his open palm onto which his agent has just deposited a tiny radio. "What about the gun?" he'll call after Bond's retreating form.

"It's in Macau." 

"You _left_ it?"

"Don't worry. It's perfectly safe," Bond will assure him. "It's in the belly of a komodo."

"A _komodo?_ " he will find himself shouting several hours later over a golden pint of frothy beer.

Beside him, Moneypenny will toss her head back and laugh. "I've never seen you get this worked up over anything before, Q."

"I've never had an agent be such a _prat!_ It's like he thinks he's the king of bloody England when the truth is, he's just a … a _clotpole!_ "

Until that time, however, Merlin has his magic and his own desk in Q-Branch, and the conviction that just because he seems to be eternally waiting, does not mean he cannot also be actively searching.

 

**The End?**


End file.
